Monica was delighted as she looked around at all the details of the beautiful restaurant. The room, filled with fine, old furniture and decorated with heavy, framed pictures seemed more like a rather grand but tastefully decorated private home than a mere restaurant.
Monica felt a little sad that this lovely place would exist for one night only. Wouldn’t it be nice, she thought, if they could just give the restaurant to some deserving chef when the night was done? But she knew that could not happen.
The view out of the arched windows was nothing short of spectacular. It seemed that every light in every Manhattan skyscraper was burning that night and the sky was lit with a big, yellow, full moon. The soft tinkling of piano music came from the baby grand in the corner, the keys moving by themselves as if played by unseen but skillful hands.
Andrew paced the restaurant nervously, glancing at the antique clock every few seconds, as the old brass hands edged toward the hour of seven o’clock. As the clock began to chime, Kate Calder walked into Chez Tess. It had never occurred to Andrew that his “date” would be nothing if not on time.
Kate was impressed with Chez Tess too. As she walked through the front door of the restaurant, her normally hard features softened for a moment as she took in the gorgeous room. There was a look of wonder in her eyes and she thought that she must have walked into the most romantic restaurant in all of New York City. Of course, if Kate had seen the same place just a few hours before, she would have been even more amazed.
The doctor herself had undergone quite a transformation. Gone was the severely cut suit that she had worn that day. In its place was a red velvet evening gown, accented with a few pieces of expensive jewelry. Gone, too, was the stiff hairstyle that had been pulled back in a tight, professorial bun. Instead she had it down, her dark brown hair falling to her bare shoulders.
Monica could see the look of surprise register on Kate’s face, and she felt joy swell inside of her and it almost came pouring out. It was all she could do to maintain the discreet, excessively polite demeanor of a professional headwaiter.
“Good evening,” said Monica. “Are you Dr. Calder?” she asked, preserving the fiction. Monica could not imagine anyone else walking through the doors of Chez Tess that evening.
Kate nodded. “Yes, I am Dr. Calder.”
“Your table is waiting. This way, please.” Monica led the young woman farther into the restaurant. The best table in the place was in the far corner, close to the windows and just to the left of the marble fireplace in which a fire crackled.
Andrew was already waiting there, dressed in a black tuxedo, fiddling with his bow tie and readjusting his cummerbund—an article of clothing he had never worn before. Next to his chair was a bottle of champagne that was sitting in an antique silver ice bucket.
He wished he had more details on this assignment; he felt as if he were flying blind and, for a moment, he considered darting into the kitchen for some last-minute advice from Tess. But then he realized it was too late for that. Monica and Kate were making their way across the room toward him. He stood and pulled out Kate’s chair.
“Hi,” said Andrew.
“Hi.” They shook hands—an awkward, uncertain moment—then Kate slipped into her seat, Andrew into his. Kate looked around the room. For all her attempts to be strictly businesslike, the room and the atmosphere were having the desired effect. She could feel herself relaxing, the cold core inside her melting a bit.
“Shall I open the champagne, sir?” Monica asked. She reached for the bottle chilling in the ice bucket.
“No, thanks,” Andrew replied with a smile. “I’ll see to it myself, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all, sir,” said Monica, withdrawing to her post at the door, just like a real maître d’.
Andrew pulled the champagne from the ice bucket and started working on the foil around the neck.
“This is a strange place,” said Kate, looking around again. “I’ve never heard of it.”
Restaurants were a minor religion in Manhattan, restaurant reviewers were celebrities, and restaurant reviews were pored over as if they were revealing some universal truths. Diners who wanted to eat in one of the hot new restaurants had to book a month, sometimes two months, in advance. Friends in celebrated kitchens were actively cultivated, because it was an open secret that one celebrity chef could usually free up a table if approached by another celebrity chef.
“It’s a pretty new place,” said Andrew. “Just opened, really. I sort of stumbled onto it myself.”
If only she knew how new . . . He held up the bottle of champagne for her inspection.
“Is this okay?” he asked. “Or would you like something else?” He had chosen champagne because he knew it was the kind of drink one took in a place like this. Until that moment, it had never occurred to him that Kate might want something else.
The champagne was a bottle of 1989 Perrier Jouet “Fleur de Champagne,” the bottle distinguished by the intricate design of art nouveau flowers painted onto the green glass. Andrew may not have known much about wines, but he had hit the jackpot with this one—there were few champagnes in this class and even fewer that were considered better. And there was an added, more personal bonus in his choice.
Kate beamed when she saw it. “No, nothing else. As a matter of fact, that’s my favorite. I have a bottle of it sitting in my refrigerator. It’s been there a while now . . . But one day I’ll open it. Right now, it’s nice to know it’s there, because I know that one day I’m going to need it. At least, that’s what I hope . . .” She thought a moment. “No. Not hope. I know I’m going to need it.”
“No kidding?” said Andrew. “Are you going to tell me what you’re saving it for? Is there some special occasion coming up? A birthday? An anniversary?”
Kate did not answer, slipping under the question— she knew what the champagne was for, but she didn’t want to tell. Not yet, anyway. Andrew noticed her hesitation and knew that there was something very significant in Kate’s future, something she was waiting for. He decided not to press her on it.
She countered his question with one of her own. “So, are you a doctor or not? It doesn’t matter to me, but I don’t think you should go around passing yourself off as one. It’s a crime in this state, you know.”
Andrew did not hesitate. “I’m not a doctor,” he said. “And in my own defense, I never claimed that I was. Never passed myself off as one. Jackie Cysse made an assumption that I attempted to correct, but without success. In fact, she sort of rolled right over me like a freight train. She was unstoppable.”
Kate smiled. “That is her reputation,” she said. “But the charities she works for certainly benefit from her persistence. Nobody can get out the old money and the nouveau riche like Jackie Cysse. If she weren’t already so wealthy she could probably make a fortune as a professional fund-raiser or party planner. She certainly has the knack for it.”
Andrew knew all about Jackie’s fortune. He tore the foil from around the cork of the champagne, then turned his attention to the intricate little wire cage that held the cork in place. There was a small, flat curl of wire tight against the neck. This seemed to be the key to removing the cage.
“So you’re not a doctor,” said Kate. “That means you didn’t treat Jackie’s husband, Harvey.”
“No,” said Andrew. “Although I do know him.” He stopped and corrected himself. “I did know him. Before he died, that is.”
“Well, you would hardly have known him after he died.”
“How true.”
“So,” Kate asked. “Now that we’ve established that you’re not a doctor, do you mind if I ask what it is you really do?”
Andrew paused a moment before answering. This was always a tough question. He was going to have to sit down one day and think up the definitive answer, one that would satisfy everybody and tell the truth at the same time.
“Well,” he said after a moment or two, “I guess you could say I’m a sort of counselor. I
help people die.”
“Ah, I understand,” said Kate. She had heard about this modern approach to death and dying. It relied heavily on counselors and grief therapy and working with the person before death to accept death when it was inevitable.
Kate didn’t exactly have contempt for the movement—she just didn’t have time for it. “I understand. When science fails them, you come in and clean up, is that it? Something like that?” Dying is dying, Kate thought. There is no other way of looking at it.
“Well, that’s one way of putting it,” said Andrew, trying to keep the conversation light. But Kate’s words were getting darker and the look on her face a little hard. “I give them hope. At least, I try to give them hope.”
The word annoyed Kate. “And what do you tell these people about hope? What kind of hope can you give to someone who is so sick they haven’t a prayer of recovering?” she asked, bearing down on him as if interrogating him. “I can’t help but think that what you do could be considered a little cruel.”
Kate thought she had asked a difficult question, but for Andrew there was no easier question to answer.
“Oh,” he said, “it’s not cruel at all. I tell them that there is hope.” He shrugged as if the rest of the answer were obvious. “I tell them about God.”
“God?” Kate said, as though encountering the word for the first time. “You tell them about God?” She made the notion sound quaint and old-fashioned, as if she, as a doctor, had prescribed leeches or bloodletting to a desperately ill patient.
The wire wrap came off the cork, and Andrew began easing it out of the bottle. “Remember,” he said, “I help people die. I don’t give them hope about this life, Kate. I give them hope about the next life . . . You’d be surprised how interested they are.”
His words put Kate on the defensive, and she started to stiffen.
“Ah,” she said. “There’s something you need to know before we go on with this . . . I don’t believe in God.” She squared her shoulders. “I believe in science.” She spoke proudly, almost boastfully, as if her beliefs were something unique and single to her, as if this were a position that she alone had taken.
But Kate was far from being unique. Andrew had heard these words before. But he knew that truth resonates in a person’s spirit and that God’s Word never returns void. So he was not discouraged by Kate’s cold, hard pronouncement.
“You can’t believe in both?” Andrew asked. “Surely there is room for both God and science in a person’s life. Not every scientist is an atheist, after all.”
“I can only believe in things I can see,” Kate replied. “In things I can prove.”
“I see . . .” he said, his eyes twinkling. “Well, do you believe in dinner?” He pulled the cork from the neck of the champagne bottle—there was the faintest little pop and then a gentle puff of condensation that looked like blue smoke.
In spite of herself, Kate smiled. “Dinner? Yes, I believe in dinner.”
“So do I,” Andrew answered. “So I think we should make the first toast to common ground.” He poured the champagne into the flutes and handed one to her. “So, here’s to a small piece of common ground. A piece of common ground we can both stand on.”
Kate nodded. “I can drink to that.”
“Good,” said Andrew. “It’s not much, but it’s a start, I suppose. Right?”
“Right,” said Kate.
They touched their glasses together lightly in a toast, then they both sipped.
Kate felt the bubbles explode on her tongue. “Hmm,” she said appreciatively. “Very, very good champagne.” She owned a bottle of it, but she had never actually tasted it. Perrier Jouet “Fleur de Champagne” cost ninety dollars a bottle—a little too much to spend just for a taste of what was to come.
“I’m glad you approve.”
Monica had been observing them from her post. They had had their icebreaking chat; the champagne was open. Maybe it was time for them to order. She picked up two menus, the only menus in the restaurant, and walked to the table.
“Welcome to Chez Tess,” she said, handing a menu first to Kate, then to Andrew. The menus were carefully written out in exquisite calligraphy with principal letters that looked as if they had been copied from a medieval illuminated manuscript.
“We have a fixed menu, and this is what our chef will be serving this evening . . . ,” Monica explained as Kate studied the menu closely. Then, without thinking, Monica continued. “However, if you would like to request a substitution, please don’t hesitate to let me know.”
Even as she spoke the words, Monica wondered why she was saying them. As far as she knew, Tess was set up in the kitchen for one menu and one menu only. It just seemed like the right thing to say, something that a fine New York restaurant would do.
And, as it turned out, Kate did happen to have a number of substitutions in mind. It came as no surprise to Andrew that she would want to make changes in the menu. She had long ago learned that if she wanted something she would have to speak up. No one else would do it for her.
“I would like veal instead of pheasant,” she said, handing her menu back to Monica. “And no sage in the lemon reduction, and tea instead of coffee.”
Monica did her best to paste a smile on her face, but she could not help casting a fearful glance toward the kitchen. She gulped slightly, but she had to go on, making the best of things. Tess was not going to be happy about this at all.
“Certainly,” Monica said, managing to conceal her misgivings. “Veal instead of pheasant, no sage. I will share that with the chef.” Monica turned to Andrew. “And for you, sir?”
Monica said a little prayer. Surely Andrew knew what was going on in the kitchen and would order the menu exactly as it was written. What else could he do? Monica knew that he didn’t want to risk the wrath of Tess. But Andrew seemed more intent on making Kate feel comfortable, so he followed her lead. Thus, he did not cooperate, much to Monica’s chagrin.
“Make that two,” said Andrew with a mischievous smile. “I’d much rather have veal than pheasant.” He handed the menu back to Monica and hoped that she would not exact too horrible a revenge on him when this assignment was done.
Monica’s face fell. Then she forced her smile back in place. “Very good. Thank you.”
Monica returned to the head waiter’s podium at the door where she put away the menus. She paused there a moment summoning up her courage to go into the kitchen and tell Tess about the small changes in the plan.
But just as she had more or less steeled her nerves to confront Tess with the bad news of the substitutions, something happened that no one— not Tess, not Andrew, and certainly not Monica— could have anticipated. A second customer walked into the restaurant and surveyed the room, a look of great imperiousness on his deeply lined face. He was tall and thin and almost bald, but he carried himself with great hauteur, a slight look of contempt in his eyes, as if he were always beset by little annoyances and irritants that made his life so very difficult.
He was perfectly dressed in what amounted to the uniform of the New York male of the exclusive Upper East Side—an oxford cloth shirt with a knotted rep tie, gray flannels, and a blue blazer. He seemed rich and bossy and was definitely used to getting his way. Monica’s heart sank when she saw him. She could feel in her bones that this man was going to be trouble. There was nothing she would have rather done than get rid of him, but she knew that he would not go easily.
“Excuse me, sir,” said Monica diffidently. “May I help you this evening?”
“Is this a restaurant?” the man demanded. His words were clipped and forceful and he had a slight accent—perhaps an English accent or a refined Scottish one. The man glanced around the room, looking hard at Andrew and Kate.
Monica hesitated. “Well . . .” This was the one thing they had not counted on: other diners, even some degree of popularity. What if more people started coming in?
“It is a restaurant,” Monica conceded. “But we’re terribl
y new, sir. I’m not sure you’d be happy dining here this evening. Some other time, perhaps. When we’ve worked out all the kinks and problems.” Monica smiled what she hoped was her most winning smile. It would be hard enough on Tess to deal with the substitutions that Monica had offered so rashly. To add an additional customer . . . Well, Monica had no idea how Tess would react to that!
And yet, this formidable man looked unconvinced, completely unmoved by her impassioned plea.
“And this is a restaurant?” he asked again.
“Well . . . yes,” said Monica. “We’ve only just opened,” she added, “and I’m not at all sure that we’ll be able to satisfy a demanding customer such as yourself, sir.”
“I am not at all demanding,” the man said. “I am merely hungry. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, sir,” said Monica.
“And this is a restaurant?”
Monica tried to buy a bit of time. “How do you mean, sir? A restaurant?”
This rather grand man did not deem it beneath his dignity to define what he meant by a restaurant. “Tell me, do people sit down at tables here, look at menus and order food and then eat and then get up to leave? Does that happen here, young lady?”
“Well, that’s the plan so far,” Monica stammered. “But we’re not quite set up for anything too—”
The man cut her off. “Then this is a restaurant,” he said dryly. “And given that it is a restaurant and that it is open to the general public, I wish to have a table, and I demand to be served. And is that clear to you, young lady?”
“Oh, yes,” said Monica. “Quite clear.” But she did not budge from behind the bulwark of the maître d’s desk.
“Then seat me,” the man ordered. “And let’s hurry up with it, shall we? I’m hungry.”
Monica had only one fallback position and she knew it wasn’t a terribly good one. “Yes . . . I see . . . ,” she said. Monica looked down at the desk top, as if examining notes of great importance. “Would you mind, sir, if I asked you,” she said, “if you have a reservation with us this evening?”
Dinner with Andrew Page 6